


By Caldron Pool

by Heliopause



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Animals, Backstory, Canon Compliant, Gen, Narnia Fic Exchange 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 13:21:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heliopause/pseuds/Heliopause
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Listen, young one, and you will do well.  Never forget that a Hare's glory is in listening and bolting.  Lie low.  Listen.  Bolt.  That's all you need to know."<br/><em>But danger scrabbled, always, at the borders of Narnia...</em></p><p>A gift for the_rck!  :)  as part of the Madness round of the 2013 Narnia Fic Exchange,<br/>with acknowledgement and thanks to rthstewart, in whose 'verse Queen Susan has a special affinity for small woodland Animals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	By Caldron Pool

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_rck](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_rck/gifts).



Brothers and sisters... Fleetflit, Moonwood, Shadowpad, Thiff.   They had eyed one another warily, soon after birth, crouched low under grasses, wondering and listening.  Their mother came seldom, just enough to nourish and to hint, by flicking ears and sharp-glancing eyes, that this was not a safe world for young Leverets, nor for a full-grown Hare doe.  After four weeks, she did not return, and one by one they crept out into the open, watching air.

The world struck savagely out of a clear sky, and Fleetflit was gone.  The rest of the brood scattered, two of them to scuttle in and under the tumble of rocks which marked Narnia's uttermost west, by Caldron Pool.  Moonwood bolted in the opposite direction, towards the woodland, skittering through long grass, hollowing a fragile tunnel as he passed. 

The destruction in the sky sailed on. Moonwood lay low and flat, his fur grass-brown and slightly stirring, as the grass around him stirred, in the gathering wind. It was not safe, but gradually his breathing came back evenly, and his quivering nose scented out soft herbiage to nibble, and he began to settle, and even to venture a little out.

The moon was high when his lowered ears picked out, from among the constant murmuring of trees and Trees and small woodland animals a low grunting voice addressing him.

"Get back, dolt."

He risked raising his ears a little, and the sounds of the night rushed in on him, multitudinous. His nose twitched, sorting them.  The breathing which belonged to that low grunt was there, unmistakeable.  He swivelled his ears, and fixed on the quiet huffing breath, and hopped cautiously towards it.  An old buck Hare lay, hunkered in a bushy covert.  He wriggled in, closed up to lie beside the elder, and waited. 

"Safe enough now, from hawks, but Wolves of the Enemy run any time, day or night, litterling."

Moonwood said nothing.  Lie still and listen, his blood said, listen to elders.  And 'litterling' was, at any rate, kinder than 'dolt'.

"I know you, litterling.   You are Silverpad's child."

"She went away." Moonwood said, and an edge of dolefulness shivered in his voice. 

"Why not?" snapped the other.  "You can look after yourself!"

Moonwood's ears swivelled down, and he shrank a little down, closer to the ground.   The older Hare grunted again, scornfully.

"You're a _Hare_ , litterling! not a mewling Rabbit kit!  And more than that—you are Silverpad's child."

Moonwood was silent.

"Silverpad!  You don't know your heritage, child.  Strongest, fleetest, sharpest of us all to hear, even to hear the beginnings of the Spring Dancing, far away." 

Moonwood's ears flicked up again, but the old Hare took no notice.  His eyes gazed raptly at something Moonwood could not see, and he seemed to hear music that Moonwood could not hear.

"I have seen her in the Spring, and will see her again, if the Lion wills.  I have seen her when all of Narnia celebrated Spring, and the very Queen of Narnia walked among us, and danced with us!  Ah, your mother then!  Late in summer, when you were born, she had become timid again, and hid in long grass, but in the Spring, in her strength!  Ah, she was a sight to stir the blood then, leaping, batting away with powerful paws the too-ardent, too-hopeful pursuers, until she had chosen Broadfoot to be her mate, and they bounded and played together." 

He shuddered all over, and twitched his nose, and his eyes focussed again on the silent, watchful young Hare beside him.

"At least you can listen.  _Listen_ , young one, and you will do well.  Never forget that a Hare's glory is in listening and bolting.  Lie low.  Listen.  Bolt.  That's all you need to know."

Moonwood raised his ears, and listened.

***

Moons waxed and waned. Leveret grew into young buck, and learned more of the world.  He learned that danger scrabbled, always, at the borders of Narnia, and even darted into the lands where more Narnians lived; he learned to listen, and learned to bolt, and grew in strength and in speed and in sharpness to hear.

Now it was he who pursued the does, and reeled back, dazed, swatted away in favour of some other, and leapt up to pursue another until one turned, and smiled at him.  Now it was he who could hear, leagues away, the first faint tremblings of the pipes, which signed that the Spring Dancing would begin.  Now it was he who thumped to tell the thousand scattered Cousins of the coming of the Queen for the Spring.  For all of Narnia celebrated the Spring, and all of Narnia danced, but it was she, their own Queen, Susan, who came especially here to these woodlands, came with the great Wolf pacing beside her, as terror and love run side by side in Spring madness, to bless by her presence all small woodland creatures, Rabbits, Hedgehogs, Mice, Hares and all.  Every year she would leave the greater festivals and come here to the very edge of Narnia and dance and laugh a blessing, before she need return to the heartland, where Pomona herself was said to dance in the Spring.

A year, and another year, and he had become a Hare of renown, his hearing sharper, they said, than even Silverpad's had been.  Lazily, he would lie in open summer sun, confident that he could hear and bolt faster than any danger of Wolf or hawk could strike.  From his warm possie he smiled at the young Leverets, who sat awed, watching the great Moonwood astonish those who had gathered by Caldron Pool, with feats of hearing unmatched in memory or legend.

"There's a hawk, flying under the Great Bridge on Ettinsmoor now," he might say. "By the time the Wall's shadow touches the eastern edge of the pool, it will fly above.  Better lie low then, litterlings!  Scuffle to your holes, Hedgehogs!"

Or: "Bruggle is loading his pack now, at Beruna smithy.  The clinking is of bronzework, not iron; your new guardspear and helm should be here in five days, Friend Badger." 

Or again:  "I hear them unloading some great ship at Cair Paravel wharf now.  They shout enough to..." and here he would twitch his ears rapidly, several times in succession, to make the Leverets and young Mice laugh, "deafen me!"

But amongst the laughter he ever would give good counsel—to never forget that  living here in Narnia's north-west, whether by Caldron Pool, or up against the Wall, or further away, in the woodland, they lived with danger.  Far away, in central Narnia, was peace and courtesy and safety for all, a safety which grew stronger and stronger until it reached the strong heart of the land, Cair Paravel, where the Four reigned in joy to the great content of all Narnians.  But here, on the margins, hawks still swooped down from the West, and enemy Wolves still prowled by night, and death-dealing adders were sometimes seen among the rocks.

Summer gave way again to Autumn, and to another Winter, and then in its turn Winter began to slip from the land.  Moonwood began to listen again for those first faint stirrings at far Paravel.  It would be half a moon from the first tentative ripples of sound to when they could expect the Queen, since first the greater Dance would begin, far downriver.  Moonwood stretched and laughed and turned to ponder the coming chase and the springing up of life, for Hares and all the woodland beings.

And there!  A liquid run of notes: thin, small, but clear as sunshine... The Spring was beginning! 

He leapt up, and turned a somersault for pure joy, and then thumped fifteen times in rapid succession, pad-pad-pad-pad-pad, and laughed aloud.  The woodlanders, rock-dwellers and Caldron Poolers, all turned, transfixed, at this madness of the great Moonwood, a Spring madness, though icy networkings of snow still clung, unmelted, under the shadow of the rocks.  He  laughed again, jubilant, mocking their surprise.

"I hear it!  Be ready, Woodlanders!  The Queen will come!  Already the convoy sets out from the Cair.  Revel in Spring, Cousins!  Today and tomorrow and all the days!  Learn from me!"

And he bounded from the earth again, exulting, and turned to search out a swift doe to lead him in the chase.

****

A day, and a day and a day, and the strengthening sun warmed the rocks again, and Moonwood, after one long exhilarating chase, found himself back by Caldron Pool, and dropped there, panting and happy, close by where one Stigglemort, a Hedgehog, was chatting with a Dwarf—Bruggle, who had not long since travelled in from the south—both of them idle and unconcerned with the general energies, for Hedgehogs take their spring pleasure quietly, by night, and Dwarfs' ways are known only to themselves. 

They greeted him cheerily, and after some little meandering chat, the Hedgehog nudged the Dwarf, and began, "Tell me, Friend Moonwood, can you still do all that fancy listening?" 

Then, when he nodded, still panting, she asked further: "What do you hear now"?

"I hear tell the Spring Dancing all over Narnia," he told her, shortly, for want of breath.

"Ah, but you can't hear _all_ over Narnia, now can you?" she asked, in comfortably disbelieving tones.  "Your hearing's not what it was, I think?" 

On the side of her face turned away from the Hare she dropped a slow, deliberate wink to the Dwarf. 

Moonwood's ears twitched, and his back paw began to beat a light, indignant tattoo on the rock.  "Since when can a _Hedgehog_ quibble about a Hare's hearing? Stick to your prickles, Mistress, and leave the listening to me."

Bruggle sat forward and knocked out his pipe.  "No shame in it, Master Moonwood.  I'm not what I was, myself."

The Hare raised himself, ruffling his fur, even more outraged. 

Stigglemort stifled a snort, and began again.

"There _is_ a limit to your hearing, though, isn't there, Cousin? You used to be able to hear clear to Cair Paravel, they say.  Can't do it now, I warrant."

"I _can_ ," snapped Moonwood.  "I can hear the lightest whisper anywhere in all Narnia."

"Warrant you can't!" said the Hedgehog, making ready to spring the trap, "You tell me, if you can, what Men are whispering in Cair Paravel now.  Hey? The Men at Cair Paravel."

"I could if I liked," said Moonwood, abstractedly. "I can hear their voices, and if I..." his ears twitched, and his voice trailed away to silence

Stigglemort snorted openly, snuffling her amusement.

"Ha! she got you!" sniggered Bruggle.  You can't hear _nothing_ , because there _isn't_ any Men in the Cair now!  Every blessed one has gone to the Spring Dancing, that I know for a fact.  One for your duckhouse, Master Moonwood!"

And he and the Hedgehog snickered, and knocked their knuckles together in triumph.

But Moonwood was sitting up, rigid, and his ears were swivelled hard to the south-east, and up to their fullest extent,

"I hear... I hear... Men whisper in Cair Paravel," he breathed. 

"Can't be," said the Dwarf, frowning.  "There's no-one left there, but a few of my own kind, and Faun or two.  And Beasts and whatnot.  But no Humankind."

"Sshhhh!" said Moonwood sharply. His face was drawn in an agony of listening.

"Men whisper... they whisper..."  He looked at the other two, perplexed, fearful.  "I don't like this.  I don't like this.  This sounds... _wrong._ "

Not at the Cair, he thought.  Not there, where Narnia is safest, where the Four reign.  Here, at the borders, yes—but not _there_.

"It's wrong all right, because there _aren't_ any Men at Cair Paravel," persisted Stigglemort, looking to Bruggle to carry on the joke, but the Dwarf's face was hard and intent. 

"What do they say?" he asked, standing up, and beginning to gather again his travel kit.

"They say.... ' _There'll be as much again next Spring._ '  And I hear coin pass—gold coin muffled in a leather bag.  And they say, ' _The Tisroc rewards the prudence of his agents; deal wisely, Narnian, and you yet may hold high office, when this is his Summer Palace_ '."

"Treason!" Bruggle's voice growled like gathering thunder.  " _Whose?_   Who leagues against Narnia with the Tisroc?"

"I cannot tell," said Moonwood, "Only the Men spoke, but..."

"Enough," said the Dwarf.  "On the march.  We don't wait for the Queen to come here.  We must warn them now to beware of treachery in Cair Paravel."

"Not you," said Moonwood.  "No Dwarf ever could bolt like a Hare.  I go to find and warn the Queen."  And with the word he was away, gone, and Stigglemort and Bruggle were left alone by Caldron Pool.

********

And the story of the treachery and its discovery and its foiling, are all told elsewhere, but for now, it is enough to know that the memory and wonder of Moonwood's sharp hearing lasted as long as Narnia itself, and even as night closed in on Narnia, on another march, in dark days far on from the Golden Age, the tale was told:

_"...of Moonwood the Hare who had such ears that he could sit by Caldron Pool under the thunder of the great waterfall and hear what men spoke in whispers at Cair Paravel..."_  


**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the_rck, for this prompt:  
>  _What I want:_ character studies, backstory for minor characters, incidents implied in the books but not explicitly explored, Talking Animals being people while definitely not being human, adventures in worlds other than Narnia (have any Narnians crossed into other worlds?). I would prefer gen or bob to romance or porn. I like time travel stories, but I don't see that necessarily working with Narnia. I'm just kind of throwing things out. I'm sure I'll be happy with whatever I get.
> 
>  _Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever:_ "Broken hearts and dirty windows/Make life difficult to see/That's why last night and this mornin'/Always look the same to me."
> 
> I hope this fills the bill! :)


End file.
